


Riff

by ledbythreads



Series: Heart in your hand [4]
Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: Album: Led Zeppelin II, Band Fic, Canon Compliant, Canon Timeline, Led Zeppelin References, M/M, One True Pairing, POV Jimmy, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, RPF, RPS - Freeform, Smut, Song: Whole Lotta Love, True Love, recording sessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:33:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22826449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ledbythreads/pseuds/ledbythreads
Summary: Robert is is his mind like a hit itch. Put it into the work. Let his subconscious deal with it all in the music and his logic can sort it out later in the final mix.This is a story about the making of A Whole Lotta Love and the making of Jimmy Page/Robert Plant. It takes place from Jimmy's POV from June 1968 to August 1969 and crosses over the stories Push Push and Birthday 1969 which are told from Robert's POV
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
Series: Heart in your hand [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523687
Comments: 43
Kudos: 49





	Riff

_17 th August 1968. Berkshire._

Jimmy stands, hands deep in his pockets, barefoot on the boathouse decking. Two days till he sees him again. The heat always makes him restless, brooding, which is why he loves the long cool shadows at Pangbourne. Robert is in his mind like a hot itch. Like the first awareness of sunburn at the end of the day. It’s like Robert’s laughter is still in the house. He’s got a filthy laugh that curls at the edges like his mouth does. But later, sat on the decking with his feet trailing in the water, he was all innocence. The otter baby who wanders off in Wind in the Willows. The child they find at dawn, asleep in Pan’s lap.

Jimmy’s not sure he likes feeling, remembering, like this. But gods the guy can sing. Like an obscene angel. Like he could rip people’s hearts out and make them come at the same time. If this works. Please gods let this work. Two more days till he sees them all together. He’s seen Bonham already; felt him rather. He simply had to acquire him. G was relentless in the hunt. Jones, well John is John, no risk there. It will be good to have a lieutenant and he will balance out Bonham. But Robert. There’s something disconcerting about him. He’s bleeding through into Jimmy’s dreams. It’s like Robert has put a geas on him; but what the obligation might be Jimmy isn’t sure. Be careful what you summon, he thinks.

The set-up he needs is so clear in his mind. High and resonant it’s the sound you make running a wet finger round the rim of a wine glass. He’s so close. Jimmy makes himself relax his hands. Takes them out of his pockets and holds the sun warmed railing. Four elements equally balanced; synergy; symmetry. Summoning the directions. Casting a circle in which the music that’s inside him can manifest.

Robert makes him feel like he’s tipping into distortion. Bending his thoughts out of shape. It makes Jimmy want to keep his distance. Put a glass wall between them and get behind the mixing desk. Until he’s in the same room with him. Then he feels the resonance, the overdrive. Then he feels it could be genius. Is that the obligation? To make the sounds that Robert can finally sing to?

The memory of him here, still so new their story is in flux. If this works people will ask how it all started. Vinyl strewn across the floor. Smoke and wine. Robert’s mouth against the glass. He’d had to make himself step away into the night and let the river take his desires and wash them downstream. Cool him. The intemperate urge to take the wine out of Robert’s hands. To kiss the shadows pooling in the hollow of his jaw. Two more days till he sees him again. ‘I asked him to my place, to see if we were compatible.’

Work. Put it into the work. Let his subconscious deal with it all in the music and his logic can sort it out later in the final mix. This anticipation about the first rehearsal, it feels electric, sexual. The heat in his mind, that filthy laugh, the pull of the current deep beneath his feet. Under the river. Tension. Release. He taps the wood beneath his fingers… na na na na Na duh du na na na na Na… that’s it. Pick up to the tonic, rest on the downbeat of the tonic E – doubling down an octave like the drop in his stomach. The syncopation pulling, pulling, coaxing. There’s an insistence to the riff like Chuck Berry. A momentum. Like fucking when you keep your rhythm steady to get the other person off. This better fucking work. Jimmy gets the Les Paul Standard. Perfect for this. His amp thrums into life.

_1st May 1969. Los Angeles_

Jimmy looks at the big steamer trunk containing all the tapes for Led Zeppelin II. His hoard. Dragged across the Atlantic with them. From city to city. ‘ _More precious than rubies, and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her_ ’

Whole Lotta Love will open the first side. Robert’s voice is in there trapped in acetate. It’s getting harder and harder not to touch him. When they are on stage it’s in every glance, every improvisation. The audience feels the fire between them and heats, lust travelling by convection. It’s working. Four elements becoming five and the fifth element is what he feels for Robert. Finally, the clarity of what he wants, audible to him at last. He’s hearing that sound that he has been imagining coming back over the headphones. A fever breaking.

He remembers how he chose the larger studio at Olympic so he could let the sound breathe. The studio they use for orchestras. Instructing George to mic the drums to catch the sound in three dimensions. Like bottling lightening. Each drum stroke a crack of miniature thunder. And then the riff. His rocking, fucking, calling, inexorable riff. The storm in his heart that he knew Robert could sing for him.

Robert had given him everything. Call and response. Pushing. Pushing each other almost competitively. In the beginning in the open studio. Bare feet on the wooden boards. Bonzo up on a riser with an AKG D30 two foot in front of the bass drum, another mic on an 8ft boom hanging like the apex of a pyramid of sound. John holding it all together at the hips. His bass hitting Jimmy right in the gut, between his legs. Detuning the Standard and bending the notes around Robert’s voice. Edging. Edging him more and more into it each take. Cocky. Brazen. He’d looked right into Jimmy’s eyes and grinned.

It’s a little after midnight. Robert will still be awake, even without the adrenaline of a show last night. Jimmy locks the tapes away. He needs the real thing. Wants to feel that song under his palms. Needs to know what Robert really sounds like when he’s losing it.

Gods he hopes this works.

Dawn. They’ve been talking all night. Call and response. He’s been yearning. Robert glows, listening, learning. He’s so close. Robert comes to stand beside him as the light spills through the windows.

Way down inside.

Honey.

Jimmy cups his hand just under Robert’s navel. Skin on skin. Feels the heat pool under his palm. Feels the riff.

“Ask me” he tells him.

Two full bars before he comes in.

“Touch me” Robert says

_28 th August 1969. New York_

Eddie is visibly impressed. This matters to Jimmy more than he likes to admit. John had played Eddie the masters for the first album and Jimmy considers him one of their apostles. Jimmy flushes slightly. He lets his smile reach his eyes. It’s working.

They work quietly together, hands on the faders, two master weavers at the one loom.

“Leave that in. Just the first breath before the guitar.” Jimmy raises his hand slightly and Eddie clips the sound clean.

That laugh. Robert’s beautiful puckish laugh. It sparks the whole song to life. 

Jimmy will do more overdubs later. Eddie has a light touch. He makes sure he keeps the balance correctly. Keeps that sense of standing right in the centre while the riff raps round one’s legs and works its sinuous way upwards. Good.

So now let’s get a sense of some of this in longer sections. They sit back in the wash of it. Jimmy hasn’t had the time he’s really wanted to lay out all his treasures. The rough cut of the middle section. He will add a great deal here. Robert wet from the shower the night Jimmy had sent for him. Sprawling on the bed naked before Jimmy even took his shirt off.

That contrast of flesh on denim as Jimmy had pushed a thigh between his legs and had felt Robert’s relief. Still not certain of Jimmy he’d been watchful until Jimmy had started to take him apart. Robert’s moans were much softer against Jimmy’s throat than the one’s he’s singing. A little more desperate. Eddie catches him daydreaming, but he doesn’t say anything. Just warms his hands against his coffee mug and waits for Jimmy’s instruction.

They will keep that part where Robert’s pitch rises and rises. All the drums are perfect. Bonzo’s brightest touches on the cymbals like Jimmy’s fingers flashing across Robert’s collar bones and down his sides. Where he’s drawn a plectrum hard across the strings it feels like Robert arching against him. Feels like his fingers dragging down the back of Robert’s thighs. Ha, does he really ad lib ‘timber’ ?. Yes, that’s perfect. A young tree felled by feeling. 

“Bring up seven now please”

Jimmy’s still focused on the drums but Eddie’s fiddling. Tutting a little.

“Drop the rest down please”

Robert’s voice bleeding through onto the other track. It must be from when he was in the open studio. He’d looked so beautiful that Jimmy could have knelt at his feet. The memory hits him behind his breastbone. Jimmy reaches for the echo-send to drown this in reverb. Eddie’s instinct is the same. Reaching for the same dial. Jimmy nods.

“Keep it. All of it. Let’s hear it with eight”

It’s out of sync. It’s perfect. The bleed through sounds like Robert’s inner voice. Sounds like his mind anticipating his words. The emotion welling up and spilling out in things one doesn’t quite expect to say. Jimmy knows the feeling.

***

Robert’s waiting. The things they say out loud in the corridor are not the things they say with their eyes. He’s hunching his shoulders up a little and wrapping his arms to his chest. Sometimes he looks so young. What are they doing? Is Jimmy doing? Gods but this works. It feels so right. Drowning in reverb. It’s so hard not to touch him. Maybe harder now he can. Sometimes. Robert’s voices are still echoing in Jimmy’s mind. Hot. Pervasive.

Jimmy greets him. Hand lightly on his waist. Eyes asking follow me. In here.

It feels so risky. Beyond reckless. But the tension of waiting is unbearable. Jimmy pulls Robert into the supply cupboard. He feels like he’s in a pulp fiction novel. A fanzine fantasy. He puts a hand over Robert’s mouth to stifle his giggle.

“Shush” Jimmy chides. Barely whispering.

Even under the bare electric light Robert looks stunning. Mine Jimmy thinks. Jimmy backs him against a rack of coiled cables and electrical wire, bolts for the lighting rig, gaffer tape. Finger to his lips Jimmy releases Robert’s mouth and looks him up and down. He can see Robert’s nipples through the thin cheesecloth of his shirt. Jimmy reaches behind Robert and pulls out a coiled mic lead and lets one end drop like a rawhide lariat. Gaffer tape would work much better if he really wanted to bind him. This is almost completely symbolic. Shushing again Jimmy turns Robert round and loops the cable round and between his wrists, behind his back. Turning him round his chest is pulled taut. Eyes gone wide but grinning. Jimmy leans forward, lips barely touching Robert’s, and rips open the front of his shirt with both hands. As Robert opens his mouth to make a sound Jimmy smothers the noise with his kiss.

Holding Robert’s face between his hands Jimmy tongue fucks him till he starts to feel Robert’s knees stutter. He pulls away to look at him, leaving a quietening finger over his lips. Robert goes to nip and bite, but Jimmy shakes his head no. He experimentally rubs a thumb against Robert’s left nipple, and when he flushes, he pinches. Robert starts to gasp and Jimmy mock glares. Shaking his head no again. Jimmy feels him out. Too much pain and he doesn’t get the result he wants, but a steady hard pressure and slight release and Robert starts slowly to get glassy eyes. He shifts about uncomfortably unable to get friction for his now obvious erection. He can wait. Jimmy nudges his own crotch up against Robert’s thigh and leans across him to lick and suckle at his chest. Robert is swallowing down sounds now huffing in frustration. Jimmy kisses him again.

Counterintuitively Jimmy feels like he has all the time in the world. This number is all about elaboration and extended sensation. He’s in no hurry at all. Eventually Jimmy eases Robert’s zip down and curls his strong, and immensely talented fingers, loosely round Robert’s cock. Oh now. Let’s go. Riff. Verse. Chorus. Repeat. The quick rhythmic pattern. The regularity. Keeping Robert’s body always in tension. Leaning in to kiss and bite and rut against him. Overloaded and driving the pitch higher then pulling back into that steady beat. Jimmy’s eyes crinkle as Robert hears the riff in his body and grins, catching on in sudden recognition. He’s trying not to laugh. Trying not to groan. Unable to do much but rock into the mechanically unyielding insistence of what Jimmy’s doing to him with his hands. Purposefully contained, Robert starts to shake. Jimmy drops to his knees. Theremin. Light airy teasing licks. Sudden intense moments, taking the head of Robert’s cock into his mouth. Fingers drumming on his abdomen. Jimmy preparing himself mentally. If he’s going to try and deep throat Robert he’d just as rather do it, memorably, in a recording studio. Hands behind him Robert grabs at something solid. and at Jimmy’s insistence lets his hips start to grind and fuck into Jimmy’s mouth. Jimmy feels like he’s under water. Like he can feel the pull of an inevitable tide. Jimmy gives himself up to the rhythm, the sway of it. Keeping up as best he can until he feels Robert silently breaking focus, falling apart, and he takes back over. Standing again to bring him over the edge in his hand.

As they try and pull themselves back together, they fall against each other with silent mirth. Robert shushing Jimmy now. Wriggling his hands free of the looped mic lead. Jimmy feels calm and relaxed. Emptied out and filled with so much liking for Robert. Admiration. He’s proud of him. What he’s willing to try. How much he gives to everything they do. There are a few cartons of their tshirts in the corner. Jimmy digs one out. Tugging Robert out of what’s left of his cheesecloth, Jimmy replaces it with snug new Zeppelin merchandise. He looks lovely in it.

“You were fantastic” Jimmy says low.

Robert bats his lashes in mock flirtation, but he’s genuinely blushing. Surprised by such an obvious compliment.

“Uhn… I didn’t mean now. Well I mean you were but. I mean the mix. The vocals are fantastic. You’re fantastic. It’s great. Special. You’re special.

Robert doesn’t say anything. They both want to leave on a high.

**Author's Note:**

> Whole Lotta Love is one of the more closely documented Zeppelin songs. Canon for this fic is taken from IRL Jimmy Page, and sound engineer Eddie Kramer's interviews, admittedly many years after the stories were polished to a high sheen - as is the Zep Lore way. 
> 
> The musicology about the structure or the song and its production is from Susan Fast's 2001 book 'In the Houses of the Holy - Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music' which I highly recommend if, like me, you are not a musician and want to understand how Jimmy Page in particular (but all of Zeppelin's members) constructed and produced their music to such intense impact on people's bodies and emotions. 
> 
> as of 20200220 Eddie Kramer being interviewed by Neil Shukler is available at  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HReL_3fCvKI
> 
> I used Jimmy Page's interview with the Wall Street Journal's Marc Myers 2014 (and various commentaries on it) 
> 
> The character George is based on engineer George Chkiantz who worked with Jimmy Page at Olympic studio in London on highly innovative recording techniques to capture Jimmy's ideas for sound that had what I ignorantly call 3D depth and you can hear for yourself with a basic pair of headphones where you do feel like you are suspended inside a live performance. 
> 
> Unusual disclaimers. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page's relationship is real and well documented over several decades - what's fictionalized is them getting in each other's pants. The only people who know how they chose to relate to each other are the actual humans involved - this fic is about characters I made up. The instruments and tech are real. Or as real as anyone from the 1960s remembers anything. 
> 
> Thanks to Fishie @thebookhunter my ouroboros musementor for live audience feedback - hope you like the encore. 
> 
> Fanfiction is communal - I'd love to hear your comments or just chat about Led Zeppelin - what you think is important. I'm here and on tumblr (contacts in my profile)


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